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I Don’t Believe It!!

Posted by Boghound on August 24, 2013

UK Connection Speeds Increase 64% Annually

The latest research carried out by the British Internet watchdog Ofcom revealed that average speed for urban households is 26.5Mbit/s, while rural homes are lagging behind at 10MBit/s. About 20% of households can currently boast super fast broadband of at least 30Mbit/s. As such, home broadband speeds are estimated to have increased by 64% within a year, though rural households are growing not that fast.

According to the results of Ofcom’s research, the average download speed for an urban household in May 2013 was about 26.5Mbit/s, while rural areas showed almost 10MBit/s. In the meantime, the difference between the two has increased since the watchdog conducted similar research two years ago.

Despite the fact that average connection speeds were increasing in rural areas, the problem was redoubled by the lack of superfast services and slower ADSL. Ofcom consumer group director Claudio Pollack said that taking into account the fact that the average household currently owns more than 3 types of Internet-connected devices, subscribers are now demanding more than ever from their Internet service providers. The ISPs are responding by upgrading subscribers to higher speed services and launching new superfast packages.

Pollack admitted that the UK people are yet to see the full effect of government measures to improve Internet availability in rural areas, which should also help to increase speeds. Ofcom also expects that 4G mobile will also have a positive effect on mobile broadband availability across the country. It should be noted that average British connection speeds have increased fourfold since the watchdog first published its speeds data five years ago.

About 20% of households today have super fast broadband of at least 30Mbit/s, up 8% a year. The organization singled out network upgrades to Virgin Media’s cable service as a major driver of faster fibre services that had managed to double speeds for many people. Indeed, the research revealed that Virgin’s “up to” 120 MBit/s service offered the fastest download speeds with an average of 113 Mbit/s. At the same time, BT’s “up to” 76 MBit/s have shown 61 MBit/s. Finally, Plusnet’s “up to” 38 MBit/s delivered almost 34 MBit/s.

Hopefully, the United Kingdom will soon be entirely covered with fast broadband access points to make lives easier.